This Week in the Fours Feb. 10, 2012:
Music with Marcy and Cantor Janet . We sang Happy Birthday to the trees
and sang all our songs about the trees for Tu B'Shevat
.
Since we learned that paper comes from trees, we made collages from
newspaper. The children ripped strips of newspaper and then glued them any way they wanted. The collages are a wonderful display of creative process art. By doing collages, the artists gets to use their imagination in any way
they desire. The collages are displayed in our class room.
Since we learned that paper comes from trees, we made collages from
newspaper. The children ripped strips of newspaper and then glued them any way they wanted. The collages are a wonderful display of creative process art. By doing collages, the artists gets to use their imagination in any way
they desire. The collages are displayed in our class room.
Trees also give us fruit. To celebrate Tu B'Shevat, everyone brought in a
fruit to share with the class. We made a graph showing the different
fruits that the children brought. The graph showed there were more
apples than any other fruit. Graphing helps to promote basic math
concepts, vocabulary and mathematical thinking. Talking about trees
led us to describing how the trees look different in the different
seasons. We wanted to see who liked what season best, so we made a graph of
the different seasons. Most children liked summer best. They said summer was their favorite because they can swim, their birthday is in the summer,
the sun is shining and you get to play outdoors and swim to keep cool.
Fall was the favorite of one four who likes to jump in the fall
leaves. Winter for some is a favorite because you can go skiing and build snow
men, and Spring because flowers are growing and you can plant flowers
in the spring.
On Wednesday, we did had a big celebration with Jackie and the Rabbi. We talked about why we celebrate Tu B'Shevat at this time of year and how in Israel it's starting to get warmer and the almond trees are in bloom. We did a big lesson about growing things, and discussed how every seed is unique to it's own species, so an orange seed will always grow an orange and never a mango or papaya. We examined all kinds of fruits and tried to guess if there was one seed or a lot of seeds inside. We also talked about which seeds you can eat and which you can't.
In conjunction with Tu B'Shevat, on Thursday we made bird feeders for the birds that are brave and stayed here for the winter. The children covered pinecones with Crisco andthen rolled them in birdseed. You can use the string on the pinecone to tie it someplace where the birds will enjoy a tasty snack. We also decorated styrofoam cups with silly faces and planted grass seed inside, so it would look like hair! Make sure you give it water, sun and a haircut now and then!
We acted out The Carrot Seed by Kraus, a real classic. The class loved
acting it out and wanted to do it again and again.
acting it out and wanted to do it again and again.
From the science table, we compared different bark and talked about
how bark can be different on different types of trees.We talked about taking care of trees and at the end of our discussion, one four suggested we all hug a tree!
how bark can be different on different types of trees.We talked about taking care of trees and at the end of our discussion, one four suggested we all hug a tree!
On Friday we made another book by the fours. This one is all about
Trees!
Trees!
Shabbat was celebrated with Leo's mom.
Shabbat Shalom to everyone,
Joyce and Tara
Joyce and Tara
